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Home » ColumnsSLPP MPs wonder whether JVP leader will drop talk on Indian expansionism
Some Sri Lanka Podujana Peramuna (SLPP) MPs were in Polonnaruwa this week for the first phase of their ‘Jana Rala’ programme. The group also met some of the party’s provincial leaders to discuss reorganisation efforts. Talk during the tea break turned to Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake’s trip to India. Parliamentarian Namal [...]
Govt. shores up support for President’s policy statement while opposition shoots it down
By Sandun Jayawardana While the government used the two-day adjournment debate on President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s Policy Statement to echo his call for all parties to come together to resolve the economic crisis, opposition parties dismissed such calls as insincere, while adding that his statement to Parliament did not reflect the ground situation. President Ranil Wickremesinghe’s [...]
A taste of your own medicine, perhaps?
My dear Keheliya, I am writing this to you not knowing where I should send it. I suppose Prison Hospital is the best bet. That is where you politicians go whenever you are detained, not to the actual prison unless of course you happen to be an opposition politician at the time like SB, the [...]
Indian invitation signals NPP’s coming of age
The Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) led National Peoples Power (NPP) delegation’s visit to India last week on the Indian Government’s invitation has given political commentators much to write about. While the readings of political analysts on the implication of the Indian invitation varies, the JVP’s political opponents have used the development as an opportunity to [...]
Further reflections on post-independence economic underdevelopment and underperformance
Last Sunday’s column on the country’s failure to realise the expectations of economic development at independence and its full economic potential raises the question of why we failed. Why was it that we could not achieve higher economic growth and sustain it? Many reasons have been adduced for our below-potential economic performance. These include the [...]
The rude farce of Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Act
The Sri Lankan Government can ill afford to take the moral high ground and object to the Opposition calling the Online Safety Act, No 9 of 2024 as ‘erroneous’ when it has become amply clear that the Act has disregarded the Supreme Court’s imperative revisions as detailed in (SD) No 66-120/2023. Was the Online Safety [...]
Rambukwella’s arrest disgrace as alleged sins come home to roost
Magistrate orders CID probe into all drug imports and into victims’ fate The litany of sins which ex-Health Minister Rambukwella stands accused of, came home to roost in a magistrate’s court last Saturday. But there was not even a single Government MP present when he was brought to court, with hands cuffed to disgrace, to [...]
India’s diplomatic move takes many in Colombo by surprise
When the Indian Government decided the other day to stretch the hand of friendship to the once strongly Marxist-Leninist JVP, which, in the late 1980s, was seen as anti-Indian, it appears to have come as a shock to some political circles and commentators in Colombo. But it should not have been so. If there is [...]
NPP’s India visit causes excitement in political circles
Anura Kumara tells the Sunday Times of high-level talks and India’s security concerns President invites opposition parties to join him in common purpose of developing the country With residents’ support, GTF launches five inter-religious training programmes for reconciliation By Our Political Editor Hi guys! How are you doing, exhorted United States Ambassador Julie Chung as [...]
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